Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead sees the process of the construction of the new Sweetwater Music Hall for the first time since starting the project, Tuesday January 17, 2012, in Mill Valley, Calif. Weirr is the lead partner of the new location of the well loved music venue which is to open January 26.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead sees the process of the construction...

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Photo: John O'hara, SFC

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Workers put ofn the finishing touchs of the new Sweetwater Music Hall, Tuesday January 17, 2012, in Mill Valley, Calif.

Bob Weir walks into his new Mill Valley nightclub, and his eyes go past the velvet and leather banquette, past the Moroccan wall sconces and up the antiqued grass-cloth wallpaper to the ceiling. It isn't the suspended speaker system that impresses him, but the floor joists of the Masonic Lodge Room above.

"I care not a whit about the furnishings. What I'm concerned about is the sound," he says on his first walk-through of the Sweetwater Music Hall, which fits 300, or thrice as many as the old Sweetwater around the corner. "They removed the ceiling and exposed these beams, which are going to help a lot. They'll serve as bass traps."

Weir, who introduces himself as "Bobby," considers a room to be another musical instrument, as important as his guitar, and he won't know how this instrument will play until his band RatDog opens the hall with a private party Thursday. But he gives it a quick sound check by calling out to his father, Jack Parber, who has also dropped by.

"I see you are still alive," says Weir, making light of nearly running his dad down in the Lexus earlier that day. Father and son both live in Mill Valley, and Weir has clocked the winding downhill run from his home on the mountain above the town square at six minutes door to door of the new Sweetwater across the street from City Hall.

Sweetwater name

"I can roll down the hill and mix it up with the folks who come through here to play," says Weir, who has been lacking this convenience and camaraderie since the original Sweetwater finally withered and died more than four years ago.

For 35 years before that, Weir - who co-fronted the Grateful Dead with Jerry Garcia - could step in from the sidewalk on Throckmorton Avenue, and the room would stop. "I felt like Marshal Dillon walking into the Long Branch," he says, switching to an imitation of Sam, the barkeep on "Gunsmoke": "What'll it be, Marshal?"

No one wants to give up that quality of service, so as the Sweetwater started to sink, Weir was among those who were good for a cash infusion. For the last round, he and partner Michael Klein got a promise that if the funky old joint closed for good, they would at least get the Sweetwater name. It did and they did.

Asked whether he was among those who played the closing party, in September 2007, he answers, "I'm pretty sure I did." Then again, there have been a lot of last calls over the years. "It was just another night at the Sweetwater. They all run together." Weir is also pretty sure he played the Masonic Lodge, in a trial run called the Woods.

"The room was much echo-y-er back then," he says, unafraid to create a word or maybe two. "It has been tweeted."

Sound system trial

The sound might blast out the Masons, who retain the upstairs of the Mill Valley Masonic Building. The sound system is heretofore unheard of in a room this small, or anything under a capacity of several thousands, according to Sweetwater sound man Andrew Slote. It is by Meyer Sound in Berkeley, and "Meyer is the best maker of sound equipment here on Earth," Weir says.

The entrance is through a courtyard and cafe run by Gordon (House of Fine Eats) Drysdale. Klein, the managing partner, won't say what this all costs, and Weir can't be bothered with these trivialities. But he worked the phones in order to raise it from 25 local investors.

Everyone took his call and no one turned him down, though "a lot of people had to think about it," he says.

Now 64, Weir describes himself as "sort of a homebody. I've got a couple of kids, which is kind of new for me." Sitting on the stiletto-proof banquette that runs the length of the room, Weir ponders each question by pursing his lips until his mustache touches his beard.

The question that makes him purse his lips the tightest is whether this club is a way of easing himself into retirement from touring. He strokes his beard while forming his answer, then looks up at those 107-year-old floor joists for inspiration.

Back in 1983, "I went and saw Count Basie at the Fairmont," he says. "Four of the five guys in the quartet had been playing together for 50-some years. And they swung like angels. (About a year later) he put his feet up and checked out. And that was something of a revelation to me.

"I realized that I've got nothing better to do than what I do and I've loved doing it all my life. So the possibility of retirement is not something that I think about."

Recording studio

"We can broadcast out of here through our facility in San Rafael," he says. "Broadcast to the Web, broadcast to TV, radio, any place where music goes."

Another source of synchronicity will be the restaurant and music venue that Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh plans to open at the Seafood Peddler, off Highway 101 in Central San Rafael. To be called Terrapin Crossroads, it is independent of Weir's venture. "I think they could work well with each other," he says.

Terrapin Crossroads is a ways off. Sweetwater gets its already sold-out public debut Friday when the Outlaws rattle the rafters with their "Four Guitar Army." Make that five, if Weir drops by for the '70s arena rock anthem "Green Grass and High Tides."

It will be a tight fit as the four Florida guitarists stand shoulder to shoulder in their signature pose, but they might make room for Bobby.